Accelerate Capital Blvd Freeway Upgrade – Northern Wake

Capital Boulevard — a focus on acceleration

Accelerating the transformation of Capital Boulevard into a multimodal freeway and complementary parallel access road system between I-540 and the Wake/Franklin county line is RTA’s top freeway priority — and it will remain so until it is fully under construction.

NCDOT has an excellent plan to upgrade Capital Blvd. north of I-540 to a 10+ mile, 70 MPH freeway. When complete, there will be no stoplights, no left turns, and no driveways along the new freeway, saving travelers substantial time and stress, along with a complementary parallel access road system for the length of the corridor.

The Department has been an outstanding partner in their efforts to find ways to keep this project moving, and ideally faster. They are accelerating advanced right-of-way acquisition and the development of a parallel utility corridor.

While the prior toll conversation has ended, as we noted in an RTA blog update last fall, that dialogue over the past few years, ending in fall 2025, provided a necessary focus on the importance of the roadway across the public and private sectors.

Prior support for accelerating the corridor via toll revenue — While we are not currently pursuing that option, there have been at least four endorsements or motions of support during 2025 for accelerating the corridor to a multimodal freeway via the application of dedicated toll revenue. All approved support motions reference the potential for static peak period toll rates on all freeway main lanes once construction is complete and a parallel access road system is in place. All support actions reference consideration of implementing off-peak discounted toll rates; the majority of these actions also speak to the continuing pursuit of non-toll revenue solutions.

Public entities:

City of Raleigh (4/15/25)
Capital Area MPO (5/21/25)

Private, non-profit business organizations:

RTA – Regional Transportation Alliance (1/9/25)
Greater Raleigh Chamber (4/9/25)

Support for studying ways to accelerate the corridor — There were at least seven motions or resolutions of support during 2023-24 to study the opportunity for accelerating of the upgrade of Capital Boulevard to a multimodal freeway using toll revenue — while still pursuing other methods of funding the corridor without tolls.

Public entities:

Capital Area MPO (1/17/24)
Town of Wake Forest (11/21/23)
Town of Franklinton (12/19/23)
Town of Youngsville (1/11/24)

Private, non-profit business organizations:

RTA – Regional Transportation Alliance (11/8/23)
Wake Forest Area Chamber (11/9/23)
Raleigh Chamber (2/14/24)

Note that the Capital Area MPO rescinded its support for a toll acceleration option on November 19, 2025, and that RTA is not currently pursuing a toll option.

February 2026 update — In February 2026 the News&Observer had an excellent overview article and accompanying video on the status of the freeway upgrade. We were quoted and referenced several times in the article:

Converting the road into a six-lane expressway with a speed limit of 65 mph is a top priority for the Regional Transportation Alliance, an arm of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. The alliance supported using tolls to begin construction sooner, as did the Raleigh City Council last May.

But state lawmakers, led by Rep. Mike Schietzelt, a Republican whose district covers parts of northern Wake, moved to block tolling. Schietzelt said community leaders, business owners and residents he spoke with generally opposed the idea.

The House passed a budget bill last May that included a provision that would have prevented the state from turning U.S. 1 into a toll road. The bill didn’t pass the Senate, but the message was clear, said Joe Milazzo, executive director of the Regional Transportation Alliance.

“That amendment clarified a very broadly-held legislative perspective,” Milazzo said at RTA’s annual meeting last month.

Milazzo said the Regional Transportation Alliance hasn’t given up on finding ways to get the highway built sooner (than a 2031 construction start date).

“RTA is looking for other solutions with key partners and key elected leaders,” he said. “Innovative funding, perhaps innovative financing or project delivery to accelerate this project. More to come on that.”

The regional business community is looking at a variety of acceleration options. Could there be a loan solution, an innovative project delivery option, a combination, or another method? We shall see, and shall continue to push forward, because relief is essential, and accelerated construction means both sooner relief and guaranteed results. Thank you to NCDOT, CAMPO, and all of our local, regional, state, and federal partners, including the NC General Assembly.

The business case for the prior toll option – As we said to the News & Observer in early 2024, “We want to see what the detailed study [of accelerating the freeway upgrade via toll revenue] would tell us. Of course, the reality is that Capital Boulevard travelers are already paying a toll of delay and stress every day with nothing to show for it.”

Prior travel time analysis — NCDOT’s multimodal freeway design includes the construction of miles of new service roads, which will create a new, parallel travel way parallel to the US 1 freeway, in concert with and accessible from all proposed exits.

An initial analysis commissioned by RTA of projected future peak period corridor travel times found that travel along the parallel service road routing would take far less time than travel along an unimproved Capital Boulevard. In broad terms: it will take around 10 minutes to travel the entire 10 mile stretch from I-540 to Franklin County via freeway, around 30 minutes via parallel service roads, and around 60 minutes along an unimproved Capital Boulevard. Thank you to RTA Leadership Team member Wetherill Engineering for performing the analysis.